Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Announcing the Public Body Review of Arts Council England

Lucy Frazer: Today we are announcing that the second stage of the Public Body Review into Arts Council England is underway.The Public Bodies Review programme delivers against the commitments made in the Declaration on Government Reform to increase both the effectiveness of public bodies and Departmental sponsorship, making HM Government and its public bodies work better in service of the public. Public Body Reviews will be underpinned by broad minimum requirements covering efficiency, efficacy, accountability, and governance. The review will follow guidance published in April 2022 by the Cabinet Office: ‘Guidance on the undertaking of Reviews of Public Bodies’.Arts Council England is an executive non-departmental public body, and was established by Royal Charter in 1946. It is one of the Government’s primary vehicles to support the arts and creativity in England; its role encompasses funding and investment, research, support and advice to the sector, and partnership promotion.The Government is proud of the work it has undertaken with Arts Council England, providing increased investment in arts and culture through its most recent funding portfolio, and spreading opportunity across the country to a record number of organisations.The Department has agreed to commence a full-scale review into Arts Council England, and Dame Mary Archer has been appointed as the independent Lead Reviewer. She will work with a Review Team composed of officials from the Department and an Advisory Board of people with a range of experience in the arts and culture (detailed below).Dave Moutrey (Chair)Sir Damon BuffiniDavid ButcherTony ButlerLeila D'AronvilleNathaniel Hepburn MBEBaroness McIntosh of HudnallSir Simon RobeyGurvinder Sandher MBE DLProfessor Katy ShawSarah Staniforth CBEJo VerrentDr Sharon Watson MBE DLSue Williamson MBE The Terms of Reference for the review have been drafted following consultation between the Lead Reviewer, the Department and Arts Council England, and the review will broadly look at the following areas:Arts Council England’s delivery model and whether it is correct to deliver effective outcomes for the public;Arts Council England’s grant monitoring procedures and overall efficiency;Arts Council England’s statutory functions;Departmental sponsorship; andArts Council England’s accountability to the Department, respecting the importance of the arm's-length principle and the Arts Council’s responsibility as custodians of public money. In conducting the review, officials will engage with a broad range of interested parties in the arts and creative sectors across the UK.As set out by the Cabinet Office guidance, the review will report to the Government, and the Government will publish the conclusions of the review and any Departmental response in due course.

Department for Education

Update on childminders and applications for the September entitlement expansion

David Johnston: This Government is delivering a brighter future for Britain, with long-term economic security and opportunity: where hard work is always rewarded; where ambition and aspiration are celebrated; where young people get the skills they need to succeed in life and where families are supported.In March 2023 the Chancellor announced transformative reforms to childcare for parents, children, the economy and women by vastly increasing the amount of free childcare that eligible working families can access. These reforms also included measures to make it easier for providers to deliver their childcare provision, including changing the staff:child ratio for two-year-olds in England and updates to the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. This is the largest expansion of childcare in England’s history.From this April, eligible working parents will access the first 15 hours of funded childcare each week for their 2-year-olds. In September they will be able to access 15 hours each week for their 9-month-olds. From September 2025 all eligible parents will have access to 30 hours free childcare for children aged 9 months all the way until they start school.In this Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced that the hourly rate childcare providers are paid to deliver the free hours offers for children aged nine months to four years would increase in line with the metric used at Spring Budget 2023 for the next two years. This is an estimated additional £500 million of investment over two years. The sector has welcomed this certainty on future funding and the additional confidence it creates to expand.We continue to make good progress supporting the sector to ready to provide parents with the places they need:We launched our new ‘Do something BIG. Work with small children’ national recruitment campaign in February. Already thousands of people are visiting the campaign website every week to find out more about early years and childcare careers. The website also directs users to search for roles on the Department for Work and Pensions Find A Job platform where there are now thousands of vacancies to explore.As we had hoped, parents are enthusiastic to take up the new support from government, with over 100 thousand entitlement codes now issued to families of eligible two-year-olds. We recently announced that based on our latest projections, we expect at least [150,000] children to benefit from this by April, collectively saving parents over £500 million in childcare costs.During February we updated the Wraparound Programme Handbook (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wraparound-childcare-guidance-for-local-authorities) for local authorities and published new guidance for schools and trusts (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wraparound-childcare-guidance-for-schools) , setting out our expectations of schools in providing wraparound childcare. We have also updated the ‘right to request’ guidance (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wraparound-childcare-guidance-for-schools/responding-to-requests-for-wraparound-childcare) so it’s clear how parents can exercise their right to request childcare from their school and how schools should manage these requests.Applications for September 2024We have announced today (15 March 2024) that applications for the second wave of the largest ever expansion of government-funded childcare will open on 12 May 2024.From 12 May eligible working parents of children from 9 months old will be able to register to access 15 hours of government-funded childcare a week from 1 September 2024, with many receiving support with childcare costs for the first time. We’re encouraging parents to apply as early as possible within the application window from 12 May and they can find out more information on www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.Childminder consultation launchChildminders make up an important part of the early years sector, and provide high quality, flexible and more affordable childcare for parents. We have taken action to support them, through the uplift in funding for early years, new wraparound funding and the new flexibilities provided for by the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023. In November 2023 we launched our £7.2m start-up grant scheme, worth up to £1200 for childminders who registered on or after 15 March 2023, and we have introduced new flexibilities for how many other childminders and assistants they can work, and how much time they can spend working from non-domestic premises.Today (15 March), we launched a new consultation to improve childminder recruitment and retention. The proposals in this consultation address some of the issues that childminders have told us are important to them. This includes simplifying the registration process for new childminders, offering flexibilities to childminder agencies, and ensuring local authorities pay entitlements funding monthly where this is the childminder’s preference. Depending on the outcome of the consultation, we will also consider extending this final measure to ensure all early years providers are paid entitlements funding monthly (if they request it).The consultation also seeks to further understand the property barriers childminders face, the best ways to support childminders to remain in the profession, and what more we can do to help childminders to deliver the new entitlements and provide more wraparound care. These proposals form part of our ongoing work to support the sector in continuing to deliver a fantastic standard of childcare and helping to deliver our transformative expansion of childcare.Experience Based Route consultationLast year the government consulted on proposed changes to the EYFS, including the introduction of an “experience-based route” for staff in early years settings to be included in ratios following a period of supervised practice. Following the supportive responses to this proposal, the government intends to proceed with this change to introduce an experience-based route for practitioners. We will continue to monitor the needs of the EY workforce as the new entitlements begin to roll out and will use this to inform how we develop the route and when it will be introduced. We will provide more information in due course. Implementing these changes will help early years practitioners to continue to deliver their invaluable, high-quality education and care to millions of children each day.Safeguarding consultation The safety of our youngest children is our utmost priority and I have seen first-hand the excellent practices that early years providers have in place to keep children safe. We continually monitor and review safeguarding within early years settings. As part of this ongoing work, it is my intention to consult on changes to the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework to ensure the safeguarding requirements are strengthened for the youngest children as entitlements rollout.

Ministry of Defence

Baseline Profit Rate for Single Source Contracts 2024-25.

James Cartlidge: Under the Defence Reform Act, the Secretary of State for Defence has a legal obligation to announce whether he will accept the Single Source Regulations Office recommendation for the Baseline Profit Rate to be used in single source defence contracts for 2024-25. He must make and publish this decision by 15 March 2024.In making their recommendation, the Single Source Regulations Office must aim to ensure that a) good value for money is obtained in government expenditure on qualifying defence contracts and b) that suppliers who are party to qualifying defence contracts are paid a fair and reasonable price under those contracts.This year, I, the Minister of State for Defence Procurement (on behalf of the Secretary of State), have agreed with the recommendation from the Single Source Regulations Office.Therefore today I am announcing that I have set the baseline profit rate for single source defence contracts at 8.24%, in line with the rate recommended by the Single Source Regulations Office (SSRO). This a decrease of 0.05% from 2023/24. I have accepted the methodology used by the SSRO to calculate these figures. The ‘underlying rate’ has fallen 0.35 percentage points from 8.44% to 8.09%. A full explanation of the SSRO methodology is published on their website.I am also announcing the Capital Servicing Rates and the removal of the SSRO funding adjustment as recommended by the SSRO, which can be found at Table 1 below. These rates have been published in the London Gazette, as required by the Defence Reform Act 2014.All of these new rates will come into effect from 1 April 2024.  Table 1: Recommended Rates agreed by the Secretary of State for DefenceElement2023/24 rates2024/25 ratesBaseline Profit Rate (BPR) (% on contract cost)8.29%8.24%Baseline Profit Rate to apply to contracts between the Secretary of State and a company wholly owned by the UK Government and where both parties agree (% on contract cost)0.038%0%Fixed Capital Servicing Rate (% on Fixed Capital employed)2.9%3.26%Working Capital Servicing Rate (% on positive Working Capital employed)1.67%3.1%Working Capital Servicing Rate (% on negative Working Capital employed)0.51%1.61%SSRO Funding Adjustment0.038%N/A